284 Mr. Burnett on the Functions 



at one gulp his son : the little fellow, not being, however, slaiu, 

 was indigestible, and played such freaks within his living tomb, 

 that the greater one, quite sick at heart, returned his dinner, 

 unhurt, uninjured, to the light of day. But again, the polype 

 has neither eyes nor ears, nor any of the ordinary organs of our 

 senses, and yet it sees and feels, or at least is sensible both to 

 light and touch, and probably to odours and to sound. Every 

 part of this thing's body is equally sensible to the various 

 stimuli which affect its system ; it is an eye, an ear all over, but 

 of what a kind ! — an eye which sees not, an ear which does not 

 understand : and when vision is to be perfected, the visive func- 

 tion becomes isolated, and the power concentered to a peculiar 

 organ, which is developed by degrees to its highest point ; and 

 as of the eye, so of the ear, the hand, and all the rest. 



In like manner, as among animals, so also among plants, a 

 division of labour, and separation of systems, leads to the per- 

 fecting of organic structure, and of functional achievements. 

 The Tremellse and Oscillatorise are closely analogous in many 

 respects to the polypes just referred to, and hence may form 

 a parallel illustration. These simple gelatinous existences, 

 known to the vulgar as " fallen stars, 1 ' or sleeping "Wills 

 o' the Wisp," are so ambiguous in their simplicity, that the 

 learned doubt whether they should esteem them animals or 

 plants ; but as they possess not locomotion, nor exhibit any of 

 the pugnacious and other qualities of the polype, which in 

 higher animals are known to be the offspring of volition, sense, 

 and instinct ; and as the doctrine of irritability will sufficiently 

 explain all the phenomena which they evince, it is more philo- 

 sophical to consider them as plants. These slimy or gelatinous 

 Tremellse nourish themselves, as seems proved by their assimi- 

 lated increase of size ; they reproduce their kind as seems wit- 

 nessed by their consecutive duration ; yet they have nought 

 that can be truly called root, or branch, or leaf, or flower, or 

 seed. Many of the Con fervse are vagrant, unattached to any 

 spot, and they, as well as the generality of the Fuci, even when 

 fixed to cliffs, or rocks, or shells, are so adherent, or rather 

 adherent to such substances, that the one can afford, the other 

 derive, no nutriment through what would seem their root, but 

 absorb their food by the whole of their frondescent structure. 



